On The Road With Denny D

The best bubble gum came in a two and a half by three and a half inch pack. It was powdery goodness in a thin stick. We'd rummage through the hockey cards inside, blowing bubbles while verbalizing as we shuffled. We'd shout a players name out and someone would chime in with one of two phrases; got it or need it. Every kid had a checklist. Once you had filled your set, you'd wrap an elastic band around it and put in a shoe box. I had a box like that once. I forgot about that box. My mother found that box and decided the church bazaar needed it more than me. I'm getting ahead of myself. If a kid had a card you wanted, you had to challenge him or her to a game called tops. You would usually use a double you didn't need that the other player needed and he would do the same. The skill involved holding the card between your index and middle finger while resting your thumb on top and giving it a simple flip of the wrist. The rules of the game were rather simple. You jus

A maple tree can grow anywhere, if given a chance. A crack in the cement, a rose garden or between a pile of wood. Such was our maple. We had a wood pile on the ground in our back yard. It was pushed against the back fence and was forgotten. It consisted of bricks, timber and the discarded dreams of being a garage one day. Time goes by and sometimes, dreams do too. But not us kids, we saw the opportunity to let our imaginations go wild. I don't know if craft paper and crayons were involved but I could just see myself designing it. It was a grand wood fort. It had a roof and inside a small dwelling that was just big enough to hide in during snowball fights and hide and seek. I don't know how that little maple penetrated the walls of our fort but right smack in the middle of it, it began to grow. We didn't even notice it at first. It was fertilized by the laughter of children. It grew happily and we did too. The back yard changed a bit as we grew. The fort was torn dow

This is a story about a groomer, a small kid and a horse named Fritz. Fritz was a gentle old standard-bred. A retired harness horse. One of many horses in residence at the Manning road farm. The barn was filled with has-beens, want-to-bes and yes, horses too. Tending to the horses were tired old men with tired old dreams, telling tired old stories, reminiscing about the good old days and the races they, or should I say, their horses won. The big white barn had massive sliding doors at each end, opened wide to reveal the splendor of the jug-heads inside and horses too. The smell of leather, straw and Absorbine Jr filled the air. That and the smell of alcohol being consumed by the horsemen. The barn floor was littered with mud, shit and straw. It was like walking through a landmine. Even if you tip toed it, there was a good chance shit was going to happen. Especially if it happened to be on the bottom of your shoe. It was a giant place and I was just a small city kid and apparently gul

Older: We are all getting older. And getting older is no walk in the park. Wait, it sort of is. Yes, it is a walk in the park. You're walking along, all be it much slower, slouched down which, lucky for you, is close to the ground. This make smelling the roses so much easier. You're older and that's okay.  Old: Old means you have arrived. Same park but this time, you walk even slower, slouched down even further, you can 't see where you are going, you fall in a hole and instead of smelling roses you push up daises. You have arrived. You're old. Congratulations I hope this was a little bit funny.  Denny D

        I lived on Buckingham drive. The district known as Sandwich East; the east side of the city better known as Windsor Ontario. That one lane pothole street was our playground. The arena. The stadium. We were average kids with time on our hands. Instead of cell phones.  Every kid grew up dreaming of playing hockey. They imagined playing for his or her favorite team. I was just one of many. I was Dave Keon and when I played net, of course, Jacques Plante. The Toronto Maple Leaf's was (okay still are) my team. Had I known the ribbing I was going to receive my whole life, I might have changed teams. A new hockey stick was key to childhood hockey fantasy. A simple hockey stick. I didn't get one often, so when I did, I used it until it was almost used up. My younger brothers got my hand me down Sherwood's. Every kid had a hand me down Sherwood. It was what the pros used, so it was the only acceptable brand. By the time I was done with them, they were no longer hockey sti

                         A cheap hockey net. Seemed like a simple request. Not too demanding. We were sick and tired of collecting a missed shots that rolled down the entire length of the block. Tired of the using bricks for goal posts. Tired of the in and out childhood disputes. Was the shot in or was it out. We wanted a hockey net. Not the flimsy skinny aluminum tubular L shaped ball of string. We wanted a real official size skinny aluminum tubular ball of string. We tried to convince my mom and dad that for the good of the neighborhood, we needed it. My parents weren't buying it. My parents money went to more important things, like food for seven kids. And our piggy banks were always empty. The money went to more important things, like penny candy and hockey cards. We could have bugged my dad and I suppose he'd eventually give in. Well, he kind of did. He did get us some empty oat bags from his brother's barn. We got free wood from a pile that was lying next to the f